Retronauts - Retronauts Micro 83: Metal Gear Mailbag

Episode Date: March 23, 2018

With Metal Gear Survive flopping and Hideo Kojima absent from Konami, the future of Metal Gear is fuzzy—or completely nonexistent. But, thankfully, Retronauts is a past-based operation, and there's plenty of Metal Gear behind us to look back on and discuss. On this episode, join Bob Mackey and Henry Gilbert as the two-man crew tackles your most burning questions about Metal Gear.

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I am your host for this one, Bob Mackey, and today's topic is the Metal Gear Mailbag. We're answering your Metal Gear questions and or comments. Yes, you can answer a comment. I figured out how. Who else is here with me today? Henry Gilbert and I guess the Patriots are no longer in control of me. But what about the Patriot Act? Yes, yeah.

It rules us all. I didn't read it very carefully. No, there's a lot of pages. But yes, I decided that it's been a busy podcasting week and I love doing like community episodes. So I figured this would be a great time. Just to talk about Metal Gear. There's a reason, of course. I am the one of three people playing Metal Gear Survive and actually liking it.

shocking news folks I've played like 65 hours of Metal Gear Survive and I think it's a fun game with a few problems but most games have a few problems Well you're a Metal Year 5 lover especially the gameplay portion and so this is like removing the anime nonsense

of a Kojima story It still has anime nonsense Just not written by Kojima Okay not the specific Kojima brand of anime nonsense Yes it's less interesting But also I walked away from the game saying See you don't need him to write a stupid story

Anyone can write a stupid story with people named like, oh, my God, they have ridiculous names in this game. I'm sorry, I couldn't even remember. I didn't even know Survivor had a story in it. Obviously, I am wearing my t-shirt hashtag fuck Konami that I only paid $30 for. Wait, what is that? It says Ray Phoenix. Oh, oh, sorry. I'm joking.

We were doing improv. This is in the theater of the mind, Bob. I'm very tired. No, but I'm talking about the wonderful hashtag fuck Konami movement. Yes, it's true. There's a lot of T-shirts for people to not like Konami. And I will tell you that at our live show in Milwaukee last year, someone was wearing a Make Konami Great Again hat.

Oh, God. And from very far away, it looks like a Make America Great Again hat. And I'm not going to say that, here's what I'll say. If you're wearing a hat that says Make America Great Again, you are an asshole. There's no doubt about it. But seeing it from far away, it's like, I don't know it's a parody. It's like you're wearing a parody of a swastika. Yes.

Like, it's like the joke is, the joke is also signaling this could be a bad person. I know, I'm not, uh, MAGA hats are so easily, um, mistakeable for the parody. It is the same of like, no, no, no, my swastika armband is the reverse sign that Buddhists use. It's a parody of it. I'm a Buddhist. Exactly. Well, I appreciate your attempt to comedy, but perhaps satire that is unmistakable from the reality is not good. It's like, what does your, what does your brain immediately tell you?

But yes, uh, the fuck Konami movement. I am, so I want to do this episode because we are at a weird point of Metal Gear where it's hard to look to the future because the future seems like it doesn't exist. Like Metal Gear survived flopped. I think for unfair reasons, I feel like it is a good game that had terrible PR and was in the middle of like a maelstrom of drama. And I have to say, yes, Konami does seem like a bad company. But at this point, I am kind of tired of the Kojima cult of personality. I'm saying this as a former really, really big Kojima fan that would defend almost everything he did. I'm in his cult of personality, too, and definitely was like, well, he's the one genius in games.

I, he hasn't, my opinion of him hasn't lowered the same as other former auteur's of his generation because I do think he is, he makes interesting things. Yeah. His dumb shit is always interesting. Unlike, I'm like, say, David Cage, I don't find his stuff is laughable, not interesting to me. Yes. But in the case of Kojima, though, I mean, we'll see what he does post Konami and. and judge him on that standard. But oppositely with Konami,

it's just like they have just been their own worst enemy. They are a company that doesn't give a fuck about what they're thought of. And I think a lot of Japanese publishers get the people think that they don't give a shit about what North American fans think of anything or anyone outside of Japan what they think. But Konami really gives that off. Yeah. And I mean, as much as I would love the company to make more games,

I guess via the rules of capital. If games aren't profitable for you, you don't have to make them. But I feel like what makes me upset about Konami is hearing how they treat their workers. Oh, that's horrible. In a not very good way, almost like they have a secret prison they send them through or something. It's like you are a janitor for life now, former game director. Or whatever those horror stories that like, I believe Kotaku or Polygon wrote about, they're easy to find. There's multiple ones of like, well, you'll never, you know, Konami wouldn't lay people off, but they would make a 30-year veteran a janitor somewhere.

Yeah. And they would also say, you can never talk about us. ever we will sue you to death if you do this like they're bad Konami is definitely bad and I am I'm with you Bob we should be more mad about their mistreatment of people versus their mistreatment of say Simon Belmont that's true you know which yeah the Castlevania games did get fucked they got fucked over real bad ever silentil as well and the metal year solid these yeah what this episode's about and PT as well but yeah with Kojima again I was a big fan at some point, but I think his, like, basically his three-year victory lap now is getting very tiresome,

and it's my fault completely for subscribing to his Twitter account, of course. I mean, nothing will turn you off of Kojima faster than following his Twitter account because it's just like, it's like him with every celebrity, he knows, constantly, and it kind of destroys the illusion of Kojima as this, like, tastemaker, this, this cinni-ass, if you will, because it's like, oh, my God, he likes every movie. he likes every even the worst movies he likes it just it really destroys the mystery again i'm opting into following him i recommend you don't if you want the mystique to still be there but i'm kind of sick of the victory lap i really want to see death stranding and i really want to

see him see if he can still deliver without his uh his his his hundreds of people behind him because i feel like they are the unsung heroes of metal gear with metal gear solid five i love that i played 200 hours of it i didn't touch any of the story because it was optional for most part and that was fine and I feel like Kojima's fingers are mostly in the story and everyone behind him was implementing all of these ideas like like the sandbox stuff that I love about Metal Gear Solid 5. Yeah though with Death Stranding he is supported by another group of soon to be unsung heroes the at Gorilla Games who just made the very celebrated Horizon Zero Dawn and now their next game they're working on with Kadima Productions is Death Stranding. So it feels like

he at least has another good cadre of developers backing him up. I hope so. I really, I mean, I feel like guerrilla games, is it? Yeah, I feel like they are very, very good developers. I just don't like any of their games. Verizon and I like more, all the kills on games can like, I just throw them in a ditch. Yeah.

It was up to me. I never gave one single pooh about that. They were made for no one. They were just like, we need a shooter. Sony needs a shooter. Make a shooter. Sony fan boys need to pretend that this is good. And they're like, we don't need Halo. This is our Halo. Yeah. sorry Sony fan boys

I like Sony too so yeah I mean the future is bleak for Metal Gear but now we can look to the past and I say my recommendation is play Metal Gear Survive it is a survival game if you know what that is and if you like those kind of games this is a very good interpretation

of that via Metal Gear stuff Metal Gear wackiness and the Fox Engine which I love like one of one of my biggest disappointments with Koja Malieve and Konami or getting laid off or getting fired or whatever happened is that like this engine is so great, like these mechanics are so great and now nothing will come of them. But now there is a variation on Metal Gear and I feel like the Metal Gear offshoots can be fun. I don't

know why I do know why people want to hate it, but it's just like let people make spinoffs. It's fine. Other people have made Metal Gear spin-offs before without Kojima. Yeah, I do think it's symbolically fitting that it's a zombie because people view the game, view Metal Gear as a zombie without Kojima. That's true. But I wrote a US Gamer article about this. I think it was called Let's Calm down about Metal Gear Survive and it was because I was the contrarian therefore the smartest man in the room. I do feel bad for the man they made

Konami made as the figurehead for this game. He had been an executive producer on Metal Gear games for a long time. He was not just some stooge they shoved on top of it. He was the main producer on the Konami side of Metal Gear Solid

or Metal Gear Rising Revengeance. I know that because I interviewed him about it and at the Konami offices and he had been working on it as long as anybody but he's the I feel bad for him because he clearly was not invited to the reindeer games

with all the other Kojima pals that are working with. Yeah I mean there was a game made under duress it's probably not the game they wanted to make but I feel like they somehow managed to make something good but oh and I will say no publisher that I've been in their office of

felt more like a prison than Konami we got trapped in a hallway because they're like no the PR guy you're with his past doesn't open the store in a whole way so you better call this guy at the Portland Metro Gaming Expo live show in 2017 we actually talked to two people who worked

ML Gear Solid 4 as localizers in Japan at Konami and they're talking about like the insanity of the degrees of clearance they needed in order to access their computer to work on the game and like a guy wanted to bring it home to work on and they're like this is unheard of we cannot possibly

do the serve. That's pretty suspicious I gotta say but but okay yes But the game was never leaked, so let's go to the mailbag. We're going to look to the past of Metal Gear. And I definitely want to hear your thoughts on the comments of this episode. What do you think the future can be? Can they iterate on Metal Gear Survive? Can they make another Metal Gear thing?

I really want to know. But let's go to the mailbag. So first we have Phil who says, I came into the series with Snake Eater, so there was a lot of backtracking in terms of figuring out the plot for me. I always seem to come back to Snake Eater. I don't know if it's the one I most remember fondly or I just plain like it. Is there a game in the Metal Gear Solid series that you keep coming back to?

And that's from Phil. And Phil, I'm going to steal your answer, and that is Metal Gear Solid 3. I feel it is the most interesting in terms of the mechanics and the story. And it's actually easy to, like, parse the plot and follow it. And then I like the characters the most. Having said that, I recorded a Metal Gear Solid 3 episode that will go live sometime soon. And I realized, like, oh, after playing Metal Gear 5, every Metal Gear is ruined for me because everything just feels so stiff and mechanical. But I can still go back and play 3 just a little bit right.

rough for now. What do you think, Henry? Yeah, the gameplay of all the old ones is definitely hurt by five feeling like, oh, well, we finally figured out the, like, it's like, oh, we finally figured out the wheel. And you're like, well, it's hard to go back to older, crappier wheels. It's actually like playing, like, five is the monster hunter world to the rest of the, to the rest of the older games. Like, they made all the improvements that were, that needed to be made, that should have been made years ago. It took 15 years for most Japanese developers to figure out current gen stuff. But now they make the best games again. But I guess I don't return to Metal Gear games a lot lately.

Back when I did, I definitely returned to MGS1 multiple times just through remakes. I played MGS1, then played it again in the VR missions, then played it again through BLEAMCast. Oh, wow. And then the GameCube replayed that one as well. And then also another one I played like the most I'd ever replayed a single version and like on the same cart was Ghost Babel. Oh, okay.

Or just Metal Gear Solid, as it was also known. On the Game Boy Color, it was just such a, I had never played really the Metal Gear Games before Metal Gear Solid came out in 98. So playing those, a kind of modern-ish

version of the NES and MXX MSX gameplay starring Snake in the solid form. Yeah. It was a really cool thing, especially the end fight with the Metal Gear is so cinematic despite being a fucking Game Boy Color

it's beautiful and you can do almost everything you can do in Metal Gear using like four buttons I mean it's not elegant but they manage to like you can duck you can crawl you can lean against walls you can know yeah you can do all that stuff but yeah you're right it is it was the introduction to Americans of what the MSSX games were like so I feel like that is very important we have a lot of the ghost babel or ghost babel stuff in this so Henry you can get the next one okay

Mike Daman says If all you knew about war came from the Metal Gear series Would you say war is good or bad Same question for espionage Boy this is a deep one War is extremely cool and totally anime I think Kojima's opinion Seems to be one of anti-war

And anti-interventionalism But also of a man who loves guns And loves the military And worships the tools of war, but not so much the results of it, I would say. I think it is a very Japanese perspective where they had, they underwent some very terrible circumstances in which that would make a country very anti-war and the citizens very anti-war, but as we see in, we're doing, we just did a, we just did a recording

talking about the Evangelion series, but it's funny. In Japan, there are like military otaku, there are gun otaku, but they just are interested in the replicas. I don't think they're like, yes, I want to take this and kill some. one. But I feel like ultimately with Metal Gear, as much as it wants to have its cake and eat a two, with three especially, it's just like soldiers are

soldiers are tools to be used and thrown away by not even governments by whoever can pay the most money. Like there are no, it's like the scene from network. It's happening in Metal Gear Cell 3. There are no governments anymore. It's just like the highest bidder. No borders. And these these like capitalist factions fighting each other.

I mean, Kojima and the Metal Gear games are way ahead of the curve on. PMC is dominating everything. And he definitely has a pro-troops stance, but not even like support our troops type feeling that you get in like jingoism in America, but more of just like, it's really hard being a troop and you're putting all of this shit on them and for what to steal resources from another country. That's why shake, sorry, Snake won't shake LBJ's hand at the end of Snake Eater. He's like, no, fuck you. You used me. You're all monsters.

like in that that snake that big boss's dream of just creating a world for the soldiers and just like no this is the land for the soldiers we'll rent ourselves out to other people but we're not going to invade countries ourselves like we they want that kind of independence in it yeah it's like we decide our own fate but unfortunately big boss captured us it made us live here yeah but again it is a video game yeah it's true they you know what those guys on the base don't have so much choice in the matter. They're a sign which department to go into. But you'll hear this on the Middle Gear Solid 3-1.

And I said on that that it was a very, very, like, sort of subversive statement to put in a game, especially as the Iraq war and the new war in the Middle East was really heating up in 2004 to have this game with this sort of very distinctly anti-war and sort of pro-soldier. Not pro-support our troops, but pro-like soldiers are being used. soldiers should be pitied not in not in a like derogatory way but just like these poor people they're just being used by these forces yeah for militaristic like imperialism quite honestly and so yeah i that's what i think the opinion of war is in that but it is hard to separate that from a video game where you have to make killing people fun like that from a gameplay standpoint you can also make not killing people fun like choking people into unconsciousness can also be a fun challenge but in a game where shooting someone in the face has to be fun you can only be so anti-war

in that or anti-espionage yeah and I think I mean ultimately the game would become a very pacifistic game where the the mechanics would reward you more for not killing ultimately like you get the best rewards for not killing it's harder to do but you also get resources like soldiers for not killing or and better scores and stuff like that or you don't have to see a bunch of corpses that's true in metal gear solid three yeah and I think think three had the most the most like I don't know understandable through line about war I think

a lot of the games are just like nukes are the worst thing ever nukes are big trouble never touch nukes never used nukes and there's a reason why a Japanese writer would have that sort of perspective not that not that everyone shouldn't think that you know so up next we have a question from

Alex Bullock who says I have somehow managed to make it through 25 years without playing a middle gear game I've wanted to start but always felt drowned by the prospect of the complex lore and endless cutscenes is it worth playing the series from the beginning or is there a point you'd recommend jumping in at including twin snakes and spinoffs

and I will say in terms of the mechanics in terms of the controls the middle gear solid series has always been very idiosyncratic where they don't play like any other game and because of that they don't age particularly well in terms of how to interface with them

yeah they in some ways become bigger relics every time they come back and there's really but when you try to change the game player update it then the feel is completely different. I mean, Twin Snakes is a great example of that where Metal Gear Solid was a very specific type of game, but in between the two,

between the release of original Metal Gear Solid and Twin Snakes, two came out. And so they tried to put in the first person shooting of two, or they did put the first person shooting of two, into Twin Snakes. And when you use it, that breaks the game. Like it breaks multiple boss fights, especially the Revolver Oscelot one.

And so when you do, when you do that it's like well maybe they should remake Metal Gear 3 with the 5 engine but if they did is it even is it anything like it's supposed to be it completely changes everything I mean as much as I like

this person to Alex to start with 3 because it's sort of the beginning of Big Boss's story and that's the most important story in Metal Gear like Salt Snake is sort of a patsy that nobody cares about I would say that's a hard game to start with if you haven't played it because it's like to do simple moves in the game

You are working with a 2004 mindset built around analog buttons. Yes. So it is something that we're not used to. This might sound weird, but I would say honestly, start with five because that is the ideal version of all of those mechanics. And if you're interested in the story, you can go back and see where those mechanics came from. I think if you start with the sort of platonic ideal of Metal Gear, you can have a greater understanding and maybe more patience for the older versions of that. If you can mentally teleport yourself back to 1998 and, say, play Metal Gear One on your PSP or, you know, on the PS3 version of a PS1 classic game on there, then you might have a good time, I think. But I definitely wouldn't play Twin Snakes.

Like, no. I would not do that. Yeah, Metal Gear One might be a good. So Metal Gear Solid One might be a good place to start because because of the platform it's on, its ambition, while very big for the time, is still very limited from a modern perspective. So they can only do so much, and that gives you a new player in 2018. I feel like you'll be able to figure out more because the rooms are smaller. There's less interactions and things like that. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but it makes sense in my head.

And in the remake of three, well, not remake, but like HD remit port on 360, more so I actually like the 360 version more than the PS3 version of it, the MGS3. That's a good one to try to if you're going to do that. I may be the 3DS version. I knew it had second stick support for it. Yeah, the Frankenstick. Yeah, the Frankenstick. But I never really played it with the Frankenstick.

I heard they simplify a lot of the actions via like the touchscreen and stuff like that. But I never played it. Oh, thank God for that. But there's no ape escapes. There's no ape escapes in that. So Joey asks, which Metal Gear character is the most smoochable? You get to choose where between the nice one in the forehead and the forehead and a quick one on the lips or a big smacker on the cheek.

D.D. and Riden are out of contention for being too damn smoochable. Geez, if you can't have ridden out of shit. Jack would be my most smoochable. Only when his bottom lip is a robot. Does he have to be completely naked and covering himself and doing cartwheels? Poor Jack ends up being a head on a spine. That's all that's left of him after a certain point. But he becomes so edgy.

He's quite an edge. Like a new metal soundtrack follows him around everywhere while he does cool edgy things. I mean, Merrill's an easy one to say, smoochable, definitely. I do actually like the, I think, young revolver in Metal Gear 3 is a handsome young lad as well. Maybe he'd be my pick, or Merrill, or, man, is it Ava, the spy? Ava for Metal Gear Solid 3. The spy who shagged you in number 3? She certainly did.

I would say my pick for number one most smutable, and I'm a gentleman, so I will choose the cheek, sir, is Dr. Strange Love from Peacewalk. Yes, there is just a character named Dr. Strangelove in Peacewalker, and I believe she is a lesbian. So that's why I'm going for the cheek. There's no, there's no like, where could this lead me? But I would appreciate the cheek. In a completely friendly, platonic, like, I just want to comfort you way because you've had such a hard life. I would kiss Paws on the forehead just to be like, this really sucks for you.

I'm so sorry. But also, I think Paws is like a giant traitor at the end of Peacewalker. This story is very complicated. Yeah. I guess she was. but I don't know. She's a fucking child, man. I'll cut her a break.

They did. They did give her an ignoble end. So, yes. Let's not even talk about the, what was the name of that game? Phantom Pain. Ground zeros. Ground zeros. Right, right, right.

Ground zeros. Hightani next, who says, of course, Kojima gets all this praise and hate because he's pretty much the PR face of the Metal Gear games. But it's quite obvious that one person can't do games of this scale on their own. Especially games are usually huge team efforts with design leads, virtual leads, writers, directors, again, depending on the scale of the game. Is it really okay to let Metal Gear look like it's

all Kojima? And I will say, no, we mentioned this in the beginning of the show. It's a very, very convenient narrative, especially with games, because games are extremely complicated. And it's very easy to build a narrative like, no, it's just this guy. This is the guy that he tells everyone what to do, and then

they do it, and the work of Genius springs forth from his mind, and then they're just all his worker bees or whatever. But that is never the case. And it's actually the same with film like it might turn out the director you like actually works with an editor who is better you know it could just be a cinematographer that too

yeah and that could be the same for cojima like it could be the person who actually takes his ideas and implements them like these very technical things like cojima is not sitting down crunching the numbers on like animations and you know RNG and things like that maybe he used to in like 1988 but I feel like it is those people that really

are the important ones of course cojima's ideas are what defines metal gear but without those people behind him he would not have a game yeah i mean it's his fingers are everywhere in it when you see a very silly thing happen or an interesting thing too of say like taking photos of the beauties inside of the beast in metal gear solid four that's very much an idea of cojima that he's like that he wanted to see through and executed but and you could maybe even give him credit for like well you built a team that executes this very well so he's he's at the very least able to he could get some credit for

building a team of of great people to work with and recognizing talent there is that and and yeah it's just in in with film it's the autour theory like started in the in the 60s in film criticism of just saying a film is by the director and you give the director the majority of the credit more than anybody else because it's the director's film and that's fair to an extent but if you have to say someone made a film then recognize that i definitely am more pro us giving auteur treatment to game makers than a publisher it's something i was when i was a games writer and would cover games and cover development i would always i would do my utmost to recognize the developer at least by the name of the developer group if not the name of the people who worked on it directly because i

that gets lost in stuff a bunch especially i think in the gamer community in quotes i think it's very easy to be like e a did great or e a did bad or whatever it's like e a is a bunch of executives who okay to something they weren't in the you know studio in montreal crunching this stuff and working unpaid overtime on this yeah i don't feel i'm not comfortable in looking at it in that way and in a bigger way that's with Kojima as well and I think the cult of personality which as a member

of the Games Press I was absolutely a part of me too my responsibility I mean I worked with people who they treated an interview with Kojima

just like well I've I've spoken to Jesus like you haven't spoken to Jesus yet I've done it I've interviewed before I once had an article shot down because a co-worker

was like in a different office sent an email saying like no we're not doing that I've interviewed Kojima four times and that's not what he would say about this. We're best friends now. I was just like, yeah, okay, good.

You did fucking two cover stories about him in England. Boo. Actually, I got a kind of what I guess I was naive at the time, but this never happened with any other figure we wrote about, but at one up, I don't know who wrote an article about Cojima. I don't know what it was about, but we just pulled a photo of him from somewhere

to stick in the, you know, stick in the article because, you know, that's what you do for a website. Konami emailed us and was like, Mr. Kojima actually prefers to be photographed from this side of his face, and here's a photo you can use. And I was just like, this is kind of weird, like that he gets this kind of treatment. Like, I had heard a similar story about that with a Ken Levine type figure.

Make sure it was flexing in this picture. Yes, but I think, you know, I want the creatives to get more credit, and that would include Chejima and that. But I think, you know, he's just a man, folks. He's just a man. That's true. If you're a lot of it. can completely wipe you out if you don't get a handle on them.

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Check out my podcast. You're welcome with Chale Sunn every Wednesday and Friday right here at Podcast One. We cover the latest in mixed martial arts and everything else going on in the world of sport. Listen free to your welcome with Chale Sunnan exclusively available on Apple Podcast at podcast. At podcast.1.com and on the podcast one app. If you love the show, share it with a friend and leave us a rating and reveal it. If you're looking to buy a car, you're probably familiar with terms like MSRP. You might even know what it stands for, but what does it actually mean?

The same goes for invoice, list price, and dealer price. It's enough to confuse anybody. All you're really looking for is a price that actually means something, introducing true price from true car. Now you can know exactly what you'll pay for the car you want, including fees and accessories, before you even get to the dealership. True car dealers will show you the true price on cars like the one you want, all from the comfort of home. And how do you know if your true price is a great price? Because TrueCar shows you what other people paid for that same car you want.

And your certified dealers know this so they set their true price competitively so they can win your business. So when you're ready to buy a new or use car, visit True Car to enjoy a more confident car buying experience. Some features not available in all states. They've stolen the ultimate weapon and brought the world to the brink of destruction. Now, one man is all that stands in their way. Metal Gear Solid 3, Snake Eater, rated and for mature. Peace, by any means necessary, from Konami. And caller number nine for $1 million.

Rita, complete this quote. Life is like a box of... of chocolate uh Rita you're cutting out we need your answer life is like a box of chocolate oh sorry that's not what we were looking for

on to caller number 10 bad network got you glitched out of luck switch to boost mobile super reliable super fast nationwide network and get four lines each with unlimited gigs for just $100 a month plus get four free phones boost makes it easy to switch switching makes it easy to save Drew says, a real question, after Kojima pulling wool over everyone's eyes for most of 2001,

by going out of the way to release screenshots of the big shell with Snake as a playable character, do you think we will ever see a reveal or secret about a game as big as big as? that again the only thing i can think of in recent years was the search for frog fractions too also what was your reaction to learning about riding and do you remember the reactions around your office uh well so this is about metal gear solid two and i mean i still think there are twists like that in games not all too much but i mean call of duty actually gets away with that kind of stuff a lot of just or more so in the infinity war dades i think but they get to say like no there's a whole other section of a game in here or there's a whole other star same with like the halo two

around a few years after mg.s two they completely hid you play as the arbiter for half of the fricking campaign and they got away with that too and i think you know grand theft auto or rock star major developers still get away with that kind of stuff and then on top of that indie games they don't have a PR cycle or PR jerks telling them to reveal every secret so So they get to get away with that stuff a lot. I feel like now, so there can be surprises in games, but this was a playful, a playful bait-and-switch where it's like this is a game with your hero, Solid Snick, who you love so much. Whoops, actually, you're this guy, and we didn't tell you about him, but that's who you are

for an 80% of the game. I feel like, as much as I love that, I feel like there's a certain segment of the gamer community, and there are good gamers, and I'm a gamer, and I like some gamers, but there's a certain segment who feel that the customer is always right, if you will. And there would be, I mean, if you want to look at something like the Mass Effect 3 thing that happened, where there was a huge stink over creative choice. And my thought was, number one, I think you were kind of naive to think this would all have paid off in a fantastic ending that would have been worth 100 hours of your life.

I mean, nothing, yeah, sorry, go ahead. Nothing in your life is worth 100 hours of no game would be. And I have finished several 100 hours games, and I was not. just like this is all worth out just like oh it's finally over i can stop playing this now that's usually my take on a hundred hour game and and rejection of that kind of stuff is going to the stuff we talk about cojima as like what an attour well in that way you need to respect him making an artistic choice even if you don't like it to a degree but then again i mean i'm somebody who calls out bad artists all the time so it's not like i but as a as a as a person

who loves pranking and being a prankster and a wankster i did like i did like cojima fucking with people like he and it was the theme of the game it was sort of like a UCB prank almost the theme of the game is that like nothing's real it's all swept out from under your feet this is all bullshit this guy's not even really a vampire this lady this lady doesn't have luck bending abilities or does she that guy's fake in his dead legs exactly all those things that was the theme throughout the whole thing and part of that too though is he was mad he caught I got the feeling he was mad that he had to make another solid snake game and he wanted to punish you for making him do that and and also the i i do get the degree of anger about

it just because it wasn't just fake screenshots it wasn't just fake trailers it was a giant demo that featured solid snake that sells you that solid snake is the yeah character it's true i feel like uh so like i said with the mass effect thing i think a you might have been a little naive to think it would have fully satisfied you in the way that you expected but b i feel like if it's a creative choice and it didn't work then you move on it's fine like but In these days of, you know, hashtags and people talking about consumer rights, there are some consumer rights that are important. I don't think you are owed a good story. I think there could be a bad story and that's just how it is and you have to move on.

But I feel like if Metal Gear Sol 2 Sons of Liberty came out today, there would be a hashtag about it. Konami would have to make an updated version of the games like, oh, now you play a Salt Snake the entire time. We're very, very sorry. I felt like they would have to bend to that sort of demographic now. They could not. I mean, there was no social media. in 2001 people could not organize for these things it was it was a much i mean in a way social media has been great for a lot of groups in a way it's been very bad for some groups also with in the

no social media thing like okay it didn't get out before release because every press outlet i believe that had access to an early copy of the game did not spoil it as their embargo told them to even if no matter how many embargoes were signed one person would just have to play the game early and see that Ryden was the main character and they would just announce it and they'd say like hey you know actually Ryden's the main character of this then even places that sign the embargo would say

well we're just reporting on what this place reported on and the secrets out immediately like it would definitely been out before release that's for sure like magazines were reviewing this game on time which means they played the game a few months before for sure release so I am really surprised I imagine there's probably like one message board post somewhere that spoils it

but no one saw it I mean I can't I can't believe that it was never leaked or anything like that, but I guess I didn't know about it. Oh, and to Drew's other question, your reactions to learning about Ryden, I mean, I was like, huh? I definitely had a huh. I wasn't mad, and actually, though, I came to really

love Ryden or Jack as a character, like he's a poor, a poor son of war, like he is a child soldier who is betrayed by every single person he's ever known and also mocked and derided

his entire existence. And he's actually you, if you look at your dog tags. Yes, that's true. And lastly, what I love about Ryden is that I had asked, I got in to go and see a development thing for Revengents. I got to go to the Platinum offices. And I asked the director of that game about it, about what he thought of Ryden when he played it as a gamer for the first time.

He was like, he then laughs because he's saying it in front of the guy who worked on the game. And he's like, uh, ha, ha, ha, well, I was surprised too, but I actually came to like the guy That's great I mean I don't think I was particularly A very very mature I guess 18 year old When I played this game

But when I when I encountered writing I'm just like oh I guess I'm this guy now Because having played Metal Gear Solid 1 and loving And I'm like no Metal Gear is a series that fucks with you That's and this is them just escalating that So I was just like where is this going to go now That's really what I was like okay What are you going to do now?

Show me different things like I thought it was a cool A cool subversion But I'll tell you what I think I've told this story before on podcast But I worked at a game Stop Sorry, I have to stop and correct myself. Game stop. And there were people, you know, you have never seen angrier people than people the day after Metal Gear Solid 2 came out.

They were taking their anger out on me. Like, everyone went home and finished the game in one night, which I don't recommend. And then they came back and were like, this game sucks. And I'm just like, that's why I didn't play it at launch because I worked the launch at that game. And I was just like, I think I played it like in January or something without knowing the spoiler. Man. But I just know everyone was bringing it back saying it's. sucked. I'm just like, how could this is Metal Gear? What are you talking about? It got tens and stuff. It's

beautiful. Why would a magazine lie to me? So Mike Carbine says, I've always felt like Metal Gear Solid series was great, not because of Kojima, but in spite of him. Ooh, my favorite game in the series, Ghost Babel, Metal Gear Solid 1, and Snake Eater all had heavy influences from either the localization teams, other producers, or in Ghost Babel's case, nothing to do with Kojima at all. Am I crazy for thinking the series took a huge nosedive in quality when he was given complete control? Um, I feel like Metal Gear Solid 4 is an answer to that question and I apologize to anyone in the audience who enjoys that game. So I have to recommend the YouTuber a great guy who makes great essays. His name is Super Bunny Hop and he has a great video called Critical Closeup Metal Gear Solid 4 sort of

dissecting Metal Gear Solid 4 and what a mess it is 10 years after it was made. So like Metal Gear Solid 3 was basically Kojima having to prove himself again to Konami like I can make people happy with Metal Gear. I will make, I will kind of, you know, reboot the series in a way, like a soft reboot with a quote unquote new character. And after that was a huge hit and critically acclaimed, I think he was given complete control again. And that's how Metal Gear Solid 4 happened. Metal Gear Solof 4 was basically devoted to answering every question that never really mattered that much. Like, now that I know all the answers, I'm not a happier person. No, I mean, I guess it was, maybe that was him even surprising you of just like for three games, you think you get no answers.

all right, you're going to get some answers. Yeah. They're wacky as hell. Like, if you really did want to know why a hand seemed to control a guy and talk with Cam Clark's voice, you'll find out. Yes. And it's not very good. I do want to do an episode about Metal Gersoll 4 to refresh my bad memories of it. I really wanted to like it.

And I think my issue was I played it far outside of the hype zone. I played it in 2010. And I think, like, a lot of games of that era, it was really caught up in the, um, it was really caught up in the, the hype of its pre-release like that and GTA 4 in Biocch Infinite I feel like the more honest reviews you'd find people who played it a few years later because

these are the things like no it's good because they told us it would be good so of course but Metal Go Solid 4 I really dislike it and I I want to replay it for Retronauts just to sort of parse like what's wrong with it and to see how little self-control Kojima had in terms of

how much self-control he seemed to have in three yeah I mean three was a back to basics type approach and that's why it works so well and it gets rid of all the nanomachines and bullshit there and four was the opposite of that it was all that shit coming back

and I think too one thing you do have to really give cojima credit for in those games and their success is the PR cycle like he promotes those games so well with like he's I honestly think he's more interested in making the trailers than the games themselves

honestly the way they're presented the song choices how long they are he did post credit stings way before the MCU was an expert in that that's right Mr. President Mr. President

and I think it's I mean you can feel however you want to fill them on a Girl Solid Forum it's okay if you like it's okay to like a game but I feel like there's a reason why sort of after Metal Gear Solid 1 the main path of the series is three and then Peace Walker and then five

like I feel like there's a reason why that both those sorts of mechanics and that sort of storytelling and those characters are what eventually became like the main attraction of Metal Gear. I mean, Cochman clearly loves Big Boss more than Snake, and Solid Snake. He's definitely into one more than the other. And same with he's into that level, that era of military equipment than he is in futurism. And I think too for what interested me most about Four is just as a project that he wanted to show you he could make you like characters.

thought you hated in the case of Riden. And also the Jimmy dude who shits his pants all the time. Oh, yes. Who marries Merrill? Yeah, he ends up with Merrill. Yeah. Like, he's like, oh, you think that's the wifu of snake? Nah, it ends up with Merrill.

Who invited a monkey to that wedding? Stupid monkey. So Wilhelm Maston says, I'm really sad that Metal Gear survive and its story made me realize that Hideo is basically Ernest Kline with his constant references to movies and his work, other work blatantly being shown off in metal gear solid games it's really sad to see that he's just basically repeated his themes and elements from earlier games most blatantly in five which stole the plot of four in scratched out nanomachines and put metallic a kea or vocal cord parasite even

in-game set pieces are repeated like having to rescue a scientist from a mansion and then extract them during a zombie outbreak having m gs2 a theme of meme being so accepted and praised basically gave him an excuse to just copy stuff in the later games. I kind of like self-referential stuff if just that it rewards you as someone who follows something, but it can get self-indulgent and it can get meaningless.

As George Lucas said, it rhymes. It's like a poem. It's like poetry. I've been listening to the podcast. 372 pages will never get back. And it is a tour of the two Ernest Klein novels, Ready Player One, and Armada. It's done by Mystery Science Theater's Michael J. Nelson and one of the Rift Track writers, Rift Tracks

writers rather, Connor Lestoka, and I have not read either one of these books. This podcast makes me not want to read them, but it's a fun exploration, but you get a sense of how Kojima and Klein are very similar people and that they're very infatuated with these specific areas of pop culture. The issue

with Kojima is, he is doing it slyly. He's like, I like this Blade Runner thing, so I'm going to put it in my game, but I'm not going to be like, look, it's the Blade Runner thing. This is my thing. Inclined, he was in Klein's writing, Klein would be like, I climbed to the Delorian, the famous car from back to the future. A 1985 movie by Robert Zemeckis.

He wants to prove how much he knows about things to you as a writer. Yeah, Kojima isn't trying to like get a gold star for showing off everything he remembers. There is something though about like as we've said this eight million times on the Talking Simpsons podcast, but the thing that happens where you watch the Simpsons a ton and then as you grow up you watch Citizen Kane, for example, like, oh, that's all that stuff. That is kind of how it is if you're a younger person. playing Metal Gear games, and then you see, say, El Topo, and you realize, oh, this is a Metal Gear game. El Topo is just, especially it's Metal Gear 3.

And, oh, my God, like, go watch Running Man. Not only is it Metal Gear, it is the basis for every video game boss fight. It's like, you go into these arenas with bosses with, like, specific powers, and you take them out in certain ways. Like, it's amazing. It's like... In a lot of ways, mainstream video games have not grown beyond the films of 1980s, five. Exactly. And same with Escape from New York. like you see all this stuff you're like well these are the things he he borrowed from if you want to put it and i mean that's not like i'm not saying put him in artist jail because he was not completely original because george lucas wasn't either like he was that's actually my jordan peterson but everyone's influenced by

something else even kurosawa would who everybody ripped off he he was influenced by stuff osama samutuzuka who was the god of manga he he watched disney films all the time and started from there. So, influence is not the same as being a rip-off artists, but I also don't like rip-off artists who hide behind saying, I'm just influenced by it. So Kojima's

plagiarism, if you want to call it that, is I think he does more interesting things with it than Klein does. I feel like Klein again, like I said, like I got into this, which is from this movie, released in this year by this director. And if you're a reader and you're into that, you're like, oh, he knows the stuff I know, and I connect with this person. But

Kojima, he'll put a Dolorian in a thing, but it'll be there and it'll be part of a larger story like oh this character is a Dolorian too or there are Terminators in this world but they have a different meaning they're snatchers and they mean this like he'll do interesting things with them of course I wish he would have his own ideas but he was making games at a time

where it was like yeah just make an alien game no one cares yeah who's going to sue us nobody like let's put Stallone on the cover of Contra like he's not going to sue us yeah yeah Silent K says I just wish there was more metal gear that took place during the era of youthful snake as a fan of every metal gear

game since the original. I find the sleek and futuristic look and feel with the CQC-less stealth gameplay of Metal Gear Solid 1 and the snake played part of Sons of Liberty to be the most Metal Gear of all the games. While Twin Snakes and VR missions feature Youthful Snake and are super neat, they don't quite scratch the itch. Did you guys get enough time with Youthful Snake from the series? Which game represents the core of Metal Gear most to you? And that's from Silent K. Do you have an answer, Henry? Yeah, I do think metal gear solid the first represents the core of solid snake to me the most and i think it's the the most you get a solid snake i think kojima both in a way of wanting to punish you but as

for wanting more snake but also because metal gear solid thematically ends with snake retiring he starts the game saying i'm too old this better be my last mission i don't want to do this and i think kojima sees it as wrong to go back on that for the character and that should have some price to pay if he does and part of that is like no when i introduce fox die like that means something and he if you really want him to come back like you're making snakes suffer by making him come back you have to hear him cough all the time and die that's a great theory i prefer uh big boss really because i feel like solid snake had a role in metal gear solid and uh like by intention he has like no no character no personality he is a copy

And he is sort of a blank slate Throughout that game And sort of a thing to bounce information off of And eventually he goes through an arc Where he has to figure out like what his purpose is After realizing like where he came from But I feel like the story of big boss of You know loving being a soldier

Then having his leader betray him And then figuring out what the betrayal was all about And then starting out of heaven and all that stuff I feel like that's a much more interesting story With a much more interesting arc than Solid Snake had I feel like like you said His arc is done in one And it's hard to figure out, like, well, like, why do I care about him anymore?

Yeah, his emptiness is kind of corroding him in Metal Gear 4, which thematically I actually kind of like is a story. But that's your punishment for making him come back. And I think, too, in the only, I do love Solid as a character in his just like clueless emptiness, I guess. And I do wish he had come back in, I was really hoping that they would have closed the loop. Obviously, they weren't going to do it because it was too predictable. But once they made MGS 5, they get so close to when Metal Gear begins that they could just retell the story of Metal Gear in a way that actually is a storytelling medium,

which an MSX game is not, and to do that game. Yeah, I mean, they come as close as possible to the spoilers from Metal Gear Solid 5. The secret ending, the ultra hard to get ending, they have to do a bunch of extra stuff to get is you are actually what is it you are a a double for a big boss yeah yeah you were never him and you were sent to

go to wherever the snake breaking out or having Metal Gear 1 I'm sorry yes he does yeah and he is shocked to find out that his boss is that his big boss is the guy who runs it yes and this is like so Kojima had to close this loop which is it which is great

because it's like he has to close the loop that started with 8 big game rating so because they made Metal Gear 2 and Metal Gear 2 it's revealed that wasn't Big Boss. That was his double. You actually fight Big Boss in Metal Gear 2. So for Metal Gear Solid 5 you are playing as the double of Big Boss the entire game and you find that out at the very end in the secret ending when they set up the whole snake is infiltrating thing. I know. Wouldn't that and that that is perfect for the next Metal Gear to be a remake of Metal Gear. It would have been so awesome. Obviously if that does

happen with Konami now, it'll just be seen as counterfeit, as fake in and of itself, because if Kojima isn't directing the game, then it's not the story. It's not it again, you know? Yeah, I mean, I really want to see them do more with the Fox Engine and I really want to see making all the soccer games with it. That is true. They do make soccer games with that thing. I don't know. Like, Battle Gear Survive is fun and

I don't know if they could tell more stories. Maybe make some remix. I don't know. I really can't decide what I want. There are just so many Metal Gear games I can go back and play, and frankly, I can probably play like another 100 hours of five and another hundred hours of survive, and I'd be happy. But thank you for joining us, folks, for this mailbag. It's always fun to talk to you guys and answer your questions. And recording this in the Talking Simpson Studio, and I've been your host, Bob Mackey. You can find me on Twitter as Bob Servo. Of course, Retronaut is a Patreon-supported podcast, and we thank you for your support. If you want to support the show,

just go to patreon.com slash Retronauts. And for $3 a month, you can get every episode a week ahead of time and ad free and at a higher bit rate and lots of people like getting the show that way you can get your own private RSS feed that just downloads every episode through your player of choice and you can avoid all those ads that most people really don't like so if you want to give us money everything you give us pays into the show we buy recording space we you know have Jeremy fly to California to record with us and we're actually going to be going to the Midwest Gaming Classic very soon so April 13th of the 15th in Milwaukee Wisconsin you can find us there we'll be having a panel there too so if you're in the area or can get to the

area please go there and we'll say hi to you Henry what do you do and I know I think you work with me on other things I'm pretty sure I think so we've seen quite a lot of each other it's true but yes we we work on patreon.com slash talking Simpsons that is the home of the Talking Simpsons podcast where we go through every episode of the Simpsons

chronologically in order we are deep into season 7 now that's how long we've been doing it man it'll be crazy when we get to 200 episodes and it'll be sooner than you think oh Trash of the Titans and we also started a new weekly podcast called what a cartoon, where we talk about a different cartoon each week in the Talking Simpsons analytical and fun style. The first episode was Batman, the animated series, Heart of Ice.

The second one was King of the Hill, and a third episode is Stephen Universe, and you can listen to those a week early and ad-free on patreon.com slash Talking Simpsons. And when you go there, too, you can get access to our brand new exclusive series, Talking Futurama, where we go through every episode of Futurama's,

first season in the same style too it's also great you can there are free feeds for all that if you want to try it out but for five dollars a month you can get access to all that stuff and a ton more really cool things it also supports me and bob as well and our lifestyles of sleeping in beds instead of on the street i prefer beds frankly i hate to go out on a limb but thanks for listening folks we'll see you monday with another full-length episode thanks And call her And caller number nine for one million dollars. Rita, complete this quote.

Life is like a A box of... Tollas. Uh, Rita, you're cutting out. We need your answer. Life is like a box of chocolate. Oh, sorry. That's not what we were looking for.

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The Mueller Report. I'm Ed Donahue with an AP News Minute. President Trump was asked at the White House, his special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation report should be released next week when he will be out of town. I guess from what I understand that will be totally up to the Attorney General. Maine Susan Collins says she would vote for a congressional resolution disapproving a President Trump's emergency declaration to build a border wall, becoming the first Republican senator to publicly back it. In New York, the wounded supervisor of a police detective killed by friendly fire was among the mourners attending his funeral.

Detective Brian Simonson was killed as officer started shooting. shooting at a robbery suspect last week. Commissioner James O'Neill was among the speakers today at Simonson's funeral. It's a tremendous way to bear, knowing that your choices will directly affect the lives of others. The cops like Brian don't shy away from it. It's the very foundation of who they are and what they do. The robbery suspect in a man, police say acted as his lookout have been charged with murder. I'm Ed Donahue.